


Long Way Home

by adelaide_rain



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Family, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 10:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15117944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: Hawke walks into the alienage to see Fenris reading to an orphan, and he falls in love all over again.





	Long Way Home

The alienage has grown since Varric became viscount. The vhenadahl remains the focal point, bright and festive, but the rest has changed and for the better.

The orphanage is still sadly crowded, but the elves look after their own, and the children are looked after and loved. As Hawke approaches, he hears a song, off-key and interspersed by giggles. He smiles as he steps into the room, sees a gaggle of elven children surrounding Arianni as she leads them through a Dalish song. But that isn’t why he came here. No; the reason is on the other side of the room, in a corner away from the others. That reason is Fenris, who has a book in his lap and a small boy by his side.

This started a month ago. One of Merrill’s apprentices came to their home asking for help: a young boy, an escaped slave, had found his way to the alienage and seemed to speak only Tevene. After a pause and a sigh, Fenris had gone without enthusiasm.

But he returned to see the boy the next day. The next, too, and when he came home he was quiet, thoughtful, often frowning.

Hawke asked cautious questions; Fenris answered some of them. The boy’s name is Reyn, and he’s six years old. He does know the common tongue, but his former master ordered him to speak only Tevene. It was a point of pride for the magister to have intelligent slaves befitting his status, Fenris said with a curl of his lip and fire in his eyes. Hawke knows that Reyn likes being read to, and loves apples. He also knows that he should keep his distance, and let Fenris work through whatever he needs to work through.

In fact, Hawke is only here because Merrill asked him to help with the building work. Good old-fashioned labour, a task with little responsibility beyond not dropping bricks on his foot. But once he was here, he couldn’t help himself; he had to take a peek at Fenris and his new friend. 

Now, he can’t look away.

Reyn looks so much like Fenris that he could be his son, with brown skin and big green eyes. They share dark and expressive brows, but Reyn has dark hair to match, a shaggy, soft mop of it. He is leaning against Fenris, small hands wrapped around a lyrium-scarred bicep as he listens to the story.

Pausing just inside the doorway, Hawke considers whether to go to them, or sneak out and find Merrill, pretend he was never here. The choice is taken from him when Fenris glances up as he turns a page. He raises an eyebrow at Hawke, and Reyn looks too.

Taking a step forward and offering his friendliest smile, Hawke freezes when Reyn’s eyes widen and his hands grip Fenris’s arm tightly. 

Leaning close, Fenris talks to him in swift Tevene that Hawke doesn’t catch a word of. Slowly Reyn’s grip eases, though he still looks at Hawke with wide and wary eyes.

Fenris looks up at Hawke, curls a gesturing finger. Hawke walks slowly forward, leaving a comfortable distance between them.

“This is Reyn,” Fenris says. “Though I suppose you’ve gathered that.”

“I have.”

Fenris glances down at the boy, then back at Hawke. “He doesn’t like humans.”

“…Oh.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise, not really, and Hawke can’t blame him at all. Disappointment still sits heavy in his stomach, sour as curdled milk. 

“But,” Fenris says, looking up and meeting his eyes. “I have told him you are not like the humans in Tevinter. That you are special.”

Hawke grins at that. “That’s me. No-one specialer.”

Fenris smiles and shakes his head; Reyn looks from one of them to the other then shakes his head a little, imitating Fenris.

Oh Maker, thinks Hawke, heart aching.

“Hawke, there you are!” Merrill says from behind him, and he tries not to sigh at her terrible timing. She comes to stand alongside him, and when Hawke looks down at her, he sees her smiling softly at Fenris and Reyn. “I see you’re reading to him again.”

“Indeed,” Fenris says quietly, and Hawke can tell from the tightness of his jaw that he’s trying not to scowl at her. Reyn is looking between them with observant eyes, and Hawke knows, as Fenris clearly does, that he’d copy a scowl, too.

“That’s so lovely, Fenris,” she says, and it’s truly an epic struggle for Fenris not to scowl now. Hawke bites his lip against a smile.

“You wanted my help with something, Merrill?” Hawke says to distract her, and it works. She starts chattering about the building work, and heads for the door. Hawke smiles at Fenris before he leaves, and receives a smile back not only from Fenris, but a small and cautious one from Reyn, too. 

That’s as great a victory as any Hawke has ever won.

**Author's Note:**

> I've crashed headfirst back into the Dragon Age fandom, and I've been rereading some of my fics that I posted on tumblr a few years ago. I thought this one was too sweet not to post here! The [original prompt](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/post/140535918130/for-the-prompt-thing-if-youre-still-doing-it) was _Hawke/Fenris finds a child and the other reacts to them bringing it home_.
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/adelaide_rain) and [tumblr](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com) if you fancy watching me yell about Dragon Age, enamel pins and pictures of cats (and if you want to read the rest of my fenhawke tumblr fic, [you can find it here](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/tagged/3%20sentence%20fenhawke)). 
> 
> Thank you for reading, you're a star!


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